


Halfpace

by Deepdarkwaters



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Fluff, Injury Recovery, Kissing, M/M, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 01:46:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13671705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deepdarkwaters/pseuds/Deepdarkwaters
Summary: Being exiled to the countryside for a long weekend to recuperate probably has some kind of messy backstory involving Harry refusing to sit still long enough to heal, but Harry's had a stormcloud hanging over him the whole way up from London and Eggsy thinks it's probably best not to risk broaching such an apparently delicate subject."Cuppa tea?" he asks instead, wondering which cupboard in their rented holiday home to start checking for mugs first.Harry's wrinkly-nosed sneer fades very slightly, but his voice is still acidic when he says, "There's probably a goat or something in the garden we'll have to milk ourselves.""This pastoral bullshit Merlin's idea of a nice rest, is it?""I try not to make a habit of interpreting Merlin's quirks."





	Halfpace

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Paxdracona](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paxdracona/gifts).



> I wasn't in the mood to navigate TGC canon so just pretend none of that happened!

* * *

**Day 1**

* * *

Being exiled to the countryside for a long weekend to recuperate probably has some kind of messy backstory involving Harry refusing to sit still long enough to heal, but Harry's had a stormcloud hanging over him the whole way up from London and Eggsy thinks it's probably best not to risk broaching such an apparently delicate subject.

"Cuppa tea?" he asks instead, wondering which cupboard in their rented holiday home to start checking for mugs first.

Harry's wrinkly-nosed sneer fades very slightly, but his voice is still acidic when he says, "There's probably a goat or something in the garden we'll have to milk ourselves."

"This pastoral bullshit Merlin's idea of a nice rest, is it?"

"I try not to make a habit of interpreting Merlin's quirks." Harry lurches to the fridge, ungainly on his crutch, and makes a vaguely appeased _hmph_ when he opens the door. "A four pint of semi-skimmed, thank the lord."

"Any food?" Eggsy asks, coming up beside him to peer inside. "Get in, how much bacon!"

"Eggs, cheese, yogurt, salad things, steak and chops, wine..."

"Babybels," Eggsy says reverently, scooping the net bag out and ripping into it like he's never been fed before. "He does care."

They eat their first lunch in exile outside at a rickety wrought iron patio table with a lopsided parasol sticking like a mast out of the middle: a Spanish omelette Harry seemed to create out of thin air like some kind of culinary magician, and a heap of salad leaves tipped out of a plastic bag and into a serving dish which, other than ringing up for a takeaway or slapping together a fry-up, is about the only thing Eggsy's any good for in the kitchen. Harry methodically empties most of a bottle of chablis into the granite slab of his liver while he eats, and Eggsy tries halfheartedly not to watch the way that every swallow makes his throat pulse languidly above his open collar.

"What?" Harry says somewhat defensively the second or third time he catches Eggsy staring at him.

"Nothing. I ain't cleaning up after you when you throw all that back up again."

"How dare you?" Harry snaps, scandalised; joking or serious, it's not quite clear. "I would never waste wine so carelessly. Not even this piss."

Eggsy steals the bottle to sniff at the open top, then thinks better of tasting some and sets it back down with a grimace. "It's too green out here. Freaks me out a bit. Like there's green back home, the parks and HQ grounds and everything, but here"--he stops and gestures up at the heathery green-brown mountains rising behind their garden--"it's like the fucking main event. It's giving me vertigo having them things looming over me. And everywhere smells like barn."

"Barn," Harry repeats, looking suddenly like he's fighting not to smile behind the rim of his glass.

"Yeah. Like, cow arse and wet sheep. Gimme good honest exhaust fumes any day."

"I grew up not too far from here, actually," Harry says, and now Eggsy's the one trying and entirely failing not to grin.

"In Derbyshire?"

"Yes."

"What, like Pemberley?"

"A bit smaller than that."

"Fuck off, you're ruining the vision." Definitely one to keep for later, to take out again and inspect very carefully when he's alone in his bed after dark: Harry in his youth as a haughty country gentleman, all top hat and riding crop and soaking wet translucent shirt...

An apocalyptic rainstorm later and the discovery of a leak in the ceiling over Eggsy's bed brings that plan to a pretty sharp halt.

"I'm getting in with you," he informs Harry after they've finished scurrying round in their pyjamas trying to find a bucket to catch the drips. "I ain't sleeping on the sofa if you're gonna come in and yell at Jeremy Kyle at the crack of dawn."

It's not a big deal really; they've shared a bed more than once before, as well as several anxious vigils in each other's hospital rooms. They shared a bed on their last joint mission, sort of, after Eggsy was shot in the neck and Harry dragged him to safety through the middle of a gunfight even though he'd broken his ankle and the extra weight only made it worse. He got Eggsy to the safehouse and stayed with him on the bed for almost an hour waiting for pickup, towels and then when they were soaked through his own folded shirt pressed forcefully against the ragged wound. Eggsy still can't remember much of it, but he's probably never going to forget the heat of Harry's body on his shock-chilled skin and the reassuring murmurs that crept like smoke through his semi-conscious haze telling him he was going to be okay.

He wonders if Harry's remembering it too. Thinks he probably is. He swears he can feel the gentle slide of a trembling fingertip along the winding line of his healing scar as he's drifting off, but maybe it's a dream.

* * *

**Day 2**

* * *

The rain continues sheeting down all night and through the next morning, angry lashes of it that sound like hail against the windows, and obviously Harry's not the kind of man who owns a cagoule so braving it for a walk is out of the question. Besides, his ankle is hurting him and he's pretending it isn't.

"Sit," Eggsy tells him sternly in the same tone of voice he uses on JB, pointing at the kitchen table with the smeared spatula he's been using to stir scrambled eggs. "If we can't go out, your entertainment options are Netflix or board games."

"Oh, Netflix, absolutely," Harry says at once. "I've never once finished a game of Scrabble without being invited outside for a fight."

Eggsy does a very undignified snort-laugh as he's tipping the eggs onto two plates of toast and bacon, unable to help picturing a red-faced Merlin as Harry's furious opponent. "Bet you cheat like fuck."

He doesn't mean that, and Harry knows he doesn't mean it. "Not at all. I collect words," Harry admits, pouring the tea while Eggsy sets the plates down and takes the seat opposite him.

"What, like collecting butterflies?"

"Something like that. I had a teacher at Harrow who tried to make poets of us all - failed miserably, I might add - by giving everybody a notebook at the start of the year to keep a sort of personal dictionary of any interesting words. Of course most of the books ended up full of doodled penises because we were fourteen, or swear words. But I rather took to it. My dutifully churned out doggerel would give you stomach ulcers, but collecting those words made me unbeatable at Scrabble."

There's this thing that happens to Harry's face when he's animated about something, like a self-deprecating sort of softness around his mouth and a smile disguised in the crinkles outside his eyes. Eggsy feels like a cartoon character every time: stars exploding out of his mouth, his heart booming elastically out of his chest.

"Gimme some examples," he says, not nearly ready for Harry to move the conversation along just yet.

Harry eats for a while, considering, then wipes his lips on his napkin and says, "Well, there were a few different categories I liked to use. Words that weren't particularly unusual, but lovely to say. Things like... voluptuous. Madagascar. Epoch. Secateurs. And then I began to discover words for things and feelings I recognised but didn't know had a name. Phosphenes, the disco lights you set off inside your eyelids when you rub your eyes, and petrichor, that earthy sort of smell anticipating rainfall, or after it. Or halfpace, the platform in the middle of a staircase when it turns in the opposite direction for the second half. Limerence, being absolutely infatuated with another person so deeply that one can't think of anything else."

Eggsy heart squeezes again, thudding so hard that he almost thinks his racing pulse might split his injured neck back open. He stuffs half a piece of toast and ketchupy bacon in his mouth to mask it.

"How's anyone gonna be pissed at you laying down a fucking stunner like _petrichor_ on a Scrabble board?"

Harry's doing the innocent thing with his face where he tries to look like a doe-eyed Disney princess to hide the fact that he's actually Satan. "Oh, no, Merlin's biggest bugbear isn't the fancy words, it's when I add a single extra letter or syllable to a word he's already placed. The S is a loaded gun, always remember that. Or add un- to the beginning of something - unaware, unfasten, things like that. It blows people's fuses." He takes a prim little sip of his tea, but his eyes are gleaming evilly above the rising steam. "He thought 'sword' was a decent play once until I added 'fish' to the end. I thought he might hit me with a chair."

"You do know Netflix arguments ain't gonna be much better than Scrabble ones, right? It's the only time me and Jamal ever had a punch-up, we come home steaming from a party and he wanted Enchanted and I wanted The Bodyguard and we ended up fucking brawling on his living room carpet and smashed the coffee table."

"Well, we're not drunk," Harry points out, "and I'm extraordinarily fond of Whitney Houston."

Not fond enough to stop himself dozing off halfway through and slumping against Eggsy's shoulder, waking himself with an extra-loud snore and looking with bleary narrowed eyes around the room as if he can't remember where he is. He focuses at last, looking at Eggsy and swiping a hand over his own mouth like he's making sure he didn't accidentally dribble in his sleep.

"Were you singing along?"

"No," Eggsy lies.

* * *

**Day 3**

* * *

Sunday's weather is much better, bright blue skies and cottony clouds ambling along behind the mountains. It's nice enough to have breakfast outside at the wobbly patio table again, volleying disparaging comments back and forth about the idiots they can see high up above them hiking along a ridge, as tiny as insects and all vivid offensive colours in their pac-a-macs.

"Piggyback you up if you want a look at the view," Eggsy offers, and Harry makes an expression like he's just accidentally walked through someone's fart.

"No, thank you. I'm perfectly happy with the view from down here."

And maybe the lightbulb in Eggsy's brain would never have flickered on if Harry hadn't been looking at him when he said that, or hadn't immediately faltered and looked away as though he'd let something slip out that he hadn't meant to.

"Ohh," Eggsy says softly, kind of stupidly. He lets a few more jigsaw pieces slot into place - pieces shaped like the way Harry had carried him with such speed and tenderness out of the middle of a botched mission on a grinding broken ankle, and every hug that lingered just a moment longer than everyone else's, and Harry's sleeping face when the pinkish light of dawn crept into the bedroom they were sharing and illuminated him like something holy in a Renaissance painting. "I mean, yeah, me too. Five stars on TripAdvisor."

Everything after that is awkward and tense in a delightful, exciting, teenage sort of way. Eggsy feels a bit lightheaded, tingles electrifying his hands just from being this close to him. He washes up the breakfast things while Harry showers, then Harry putters about on his crutch straightening the living room while Eggsy showers, and after that they sit damply on the sofa and pretend to care about scrolling through the Netflix options for far longer than necessary.

Harry turns the telly off eventually and places the remote on the coffee table. He looks soft like this in the joggers Eggsy took him out to buy when he found out Harry had no proper slob clothes, strangely gentle in a bobbly old cotton t-shirt Eggsy left at his house once and he seems to have adopted. Not at all like he's spent the last three decades killing people for his job.

"How is your neck?" Harry asks. There's an aborted movement, Harry's hand reaching instinctively to touch and then drawing back like he doesn't know yet how very fucking much he's allowed to.

"Be better if you was kissing it," Eggsy says brazenly, because one of them's going to have to be a big boy about this tricky first move stuff or they'll never get anywhere. Harry's mouth is there at once, all warm breath and careful, gentle kisses that rapidly turn more fierce; all he needed was a kick up the arse and now he's away, fingers sliding into Eggsy's wet hair to tilt his head and stretch his neck to give his greedy lips more ground to explore.

"This is ridiculous," Harry murmurs, though he doesn't make any sign he's planning to stop this kissing any time before the next century.

"So's your dead animal bathroom," Eggsy says, breathless. "So's my whole life up til the point I met you. So's our jobs and this woodwormy stupid house and Merlin for sending us here. Your face is ridiculous." He kisses it when Harry tips it up to look at him, landing clumsily on Harry's scarred temple first before dipping lower to find his mouth, and Harry kisses back with a sweetness and urgency that makes Eggsy remember _limerence_ from yesterday and feel a rush of goosebumps spread out in waves from the epicentre of his spine.

* * *

**Day 4**

* * *

Eggsy wakes wound pretzel-like around Harry with his nose somehow stuffed into a naked armpit. He extracts himself just enough to breathe the cooler, fresher air of the room, using Harry's shoulder like a pillow and feeling himself start to grin helplessly when Harry's hand reaches down immediately to play with his scruffy sweaty hair.

"Good morning," Harry murmurs, croaky with sleep - and really it's not bad at all, not even for Derbyshire.


End file.
